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Why manufacturing employees leave and how to understand why
Operators, technicians and supervisors leave for reasons that sit in shifts, skills and supervision. How to ask, read the pattern by shift and act on it.
6 min readRead article
Forging and Metal Forming · Deep Drawing Units
HR for Deep Drawing Units: Presses, Blanks, Dies and Surface Finish
Deep drawing units press metal sheet into cups, vessels and shells for cookware, tanks and auto parts. Press crews, die setters and finish checkers decide quality, and cracks or wrinkles show up fast but their cause does not.
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Share your requirementsA deep drawing unit presses flat sheet blanks into cups, shells and containers using hydraulic or mechanical presses and a series of dies. Blanks are cut or bought, lubricated, drawn, redrawn, trimmed and annealed between stages if needed, then cleaned and checked. Output goes to cookware, container, auto and appliance buyers. Quality depends on blank size, lubricant, die condition and press speed, and defects like cracks, wrinkles and scratches show up in seconds. Presses have heavy dies that setters must lift and align. Operators often work in pairs, one feeding and one removing, and the work is repetitive and noisy. See also HR for manufacturing.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in deep drawing units, you may see
- Press hands are exposed to serious hand injury
- Die setters are the scarce skill
- Defects are blamed on the operator
- Lubricant and blank handling is casual
- Repetitive work bores and tires
- Annealing and trimming sit outside the main eye
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in deep drawing units
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Press operators
- Die setters
- Blank cutting staff
- Lubrication and cleaning attendants
- Annealing furnace operators
- Trimming and edge finishing staff
- Surface and size inspectors
- Press shop supervisors
Where HR strains in deep drawing units
Press hands are exposed to serious hand injury
Feeding and removing parts near a moving die is a daily risk, and small shortcuts around guards cause lasting harm.
Die setters are the scarce skill
Lifting, aligning and trialling a die takes judgement, and the best setters are often poached for a small pay gap.
Defects are blamed on the operator
A crack may come from the blank, the lubricant or die wear, but the operator at the press gets the criticism.
Lubricant and blank handling is casual
Dirty blanks and uneven lubricant produce scratches and tears, and helpers who do this task get little training.
Repetitive work bores and tires
Long runs of the same part lead to inattention, and the pace pushed to meet output raises error and injury.
Annealing and trimming sit outside the main eye
Furnace and trimming staff are left alone, and issues there surface late as batch problems.
HR topics for deep drawing units
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a deep drawing units business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Brief each shift on press safety
Two minutes at shift start on guards, two-hand controls and a clear rule never to reach in.
What this coversHide
Brief each shift on press safety
Two minutes at shift start on guards, two-hand controls and a clear rule never to reach in.
What this coversHideTwo minutes at shift start on guards, two-hand controls and a clear rule never to reach in. See workplace health, safety and wellbeing.
Give die setters a grade and a pay step
A scale from assistant to senior setter based on die size and difficulty.
What this coversHide
Give die setters a grade and a pay step
A scale from assistant to senior setter based on die size and difficulty.
What this coversHideA scale from assistant to senior setter based on die size and difficulty. Use compensation benchmarking.
Trace defects to cause before blaming people
A short defect sheet listing blank, lubricant, die and operator, reviewed with the crew, as part of performance management.
What this coversHide
Trace defects to cause before blaming people
A short defect sheet listing blank, lubricant, die and operator, reviewed with the crew, as part of performance management.
What this coversHideA short defect sheet listing blank, lubricant, die and operator, reviewed with the crew, as part of performance management.
Train helpers on blank and lubricant handling
A one-page routine for cleaning, storing and applying, checked by the supervisor, with a short onboarding for newcomers.
What this coversHide
Train helpers on blank and lubricant handling
A one-page routine for cleaning, storing and applying, checked by the supervisor, with a short onboarding for newcomers.
What this coversHideA one-page routine for cleaning, storing and applying, checked by the supervisor, with a short onboarding for newcomers.
Rotate press crews across parts
Changes of task and pace through the week reduce boredom, with extra care in the first hour of a new part.
What this coversHide
Rotate press crews across parts
Changes of task and pace through the week reduce boredom, with extra care in the first hour of a new part.
What this coversHideChanges of task and pace through the week reduce boredom, with extra care in the first hour of a new part.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- Walk the press floor and note any guard that is bypassed or removed.
- List the die setters and note how many can set the largest dies alone.
- Look at the last ten defect reports and see how many names a cause other than the operator.
- Ask the helper who handles blanks what training he received.
- Count how many hours the same operator is on the same part in a week.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the registration, record-keeping and employment obligations that apply to your deep drawing units business.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- Workplace health, safety and wellbeing
Press safety habits and hand protection routines for crews working near moving dies.
- Compensation benchmarking
Pay steps for die setters set against nearby press shops so the best stay.
- Performance management
A fair defect review that looks at blank, lubricant and die before it looks at the operator.
- Employee onboarding process
A short, clear induction for helpers on blank, lubricant and press safety.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in manufacturing, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Management
The safety poster nobody reads
A laminated notice, an annual drill, and an incident register with three entries in two years. What workplace health and safety looks like when it is real.
7 min readRead article
HR Management
Salary bands for SMEs: building grades when you have never had any
Most salary structures grew one negotiation at a time. How to build grades and bands from what you already pay, without repricing everybody at once.
8 min readRead article
HR Management
Why employees need clear expectations before performance reviews
A review can only judge what was agreed beforehand. How to set expectations that are specific, written and revisited, so the review stops being a surprise.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Make guards non-negotiable, brief each shift, and have supervisors check them daily. Never let output pressure justify removing a guard.
Recognise the skill with a grade, a pay step for large and difficult dies and a role in choosing tooling. Setters leave when they feel interchangeable.
Often it is the blank, the lubricant or the die, not the operator. A cause sheet reviewed with the crew gives fair answers and better learning.
A short induction on press safety, blank handling and lubricant, then a week beside an experienced hand. Check their understanding on day three.
Rotate operators across parts and roles through the week and rest periods that are honoured. Fatigue is a safety issue, not just a morale one.
We would look at press safety habits, who sets the largest dies alone, and how defects are traced beyond the operator. A good first piece of work is a die setter grade scale with a shift-start safety routine. Scope is agreed in writing afterwards.
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